Lemmings
Lemmings is the first game in the Lemmings series. Developed by DMA Design, and published by Psygnosis in 1991, the game has been featured on Amiga, PC systems, Playstation 2 and many more consoles. Later in the same year a level expansion pack known as Oh No! More Lemmings was released. Gameplay Lemmings introduced the eight skills used by most Lemmings games. These skills were the Climber, the Floater, the Bomber, the Blocker, the Builder, the Basher, the Miner, and the Digger. The levels are grouped into four categories on most platforms: *Fun *Tricky *Taxing *Mayhem On the Sega Genesis version there are two additional difficulties: *Present *SUNSOFT (also present in the Super Nintendo version, albeit with only five levels) The two-player option was inspired by then-current games Populous and Stunt Car Racer. DMA Design initially wanted to use a null-modem connection between two machines to allow competitive play, but ended up using the ability of the Amiga to have two mouse pointer devices usable at the same time and thus created the split-screen mode. Music Music was originally created by Brian Johnston (Scott's younger brother), who sampled bits of copyrighted music. This had been common practice, but at that point there was a growing awareness of music copyright. Psygnosis asked Tim Wright to replace the offending tracks, who often used arrangements and reworkings of classical and traditional music to avoid copyright problems. There are 21 tracks in Lemmings, which are played in the following order (in the Amiga, SNES and Mac versions): #Can-Can: "Galop Infernal" from Orpheus in the Underworld (the music by Offenbach often used for the can-can). #Pachelbel's Canon: loosely based on Pachelbel's Canon in D. #Tim 2: an original track, also known as Smile if you Love Lemmings. #One Way or Another: an original track. Also known as Miners and Climbers. #Dance of the Little Swans: "Dance of the Little Swans" from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. #Tim 3: an original track, also known as Lend a Helping Hand. #Tim 5: an original track, also known as Mind the Step. #How Much is that Doggie in the Window: based on the song (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window? written by Bob Merrill in 1952. #Dance of the Reed Flutes: based on "Dance of the Reed Flutes" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. #Keep Your Hair on Mr Lemming: an original track. This is the least played of the 17 main tracks as it is twiced replaced by one of the four special tracks. #Rondo Alla Turca: based on "Rondo alla Turca" from Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11 #London Bridge is Falling Down: "London Bridge is Falling Down", the English folk tune. #Tim 1: an original track. Also known as Rainbow Islands. This is the only track to play in the Spectrum version. #Forest Green: based on "O Little Town of Bethlehem", also known as "Forest Green" (adapted into the hymn "All Beautiful the March of Days"), mixed with the melody from the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. #Tim 4: an original track. Also known as Postcard from Lemmingland. #Ten Lemmings: a mashup of traditional songs, including "Ten Green Bottles", Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 (the part used as funeral march) and Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" (popularly known as "Here Comes the Bride"). #She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain: based on "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain". #Shadow of the Beast: the first special track. Based on the game Shadow of the Beast. #Menace: the second special track. Based on the game Menace. #Awesome: the third special track: Based on the game Awesome. #Shadow of the Beast II: the fourth special track. Based on the game Shadow of the Beast II. The Amiga version also had an original theme song that played upon booting up the game, known as March of the Mods. In the Sega Genesis and Windows 95 versions, the order listed above is not followed. Development The "droopy-nosed" design of the lemmings was inspired from UK children's books The Wombles, created by Elizabeth Beresford. The Complete History of Lemmings is an article written by Mike Dailly, one of the developers. Versions The Super NES version has a Sunsoft rating with five Sunsoft Specials, and the Sega Genesis version has two ratings after Mayhem called Present and SUNSOFT, with 30 levels each. The PSP version has a Special rating with 36 levels. The Atari Lynx version, due to the smaller screen size, has modified versions of all the levels with a reduced height. The ZX Spectrum version has 60 levels, but contains none of the traps or hazards, other than water, from the other versions of the game. It also has a couple of unique levels. Due to the hardware limitations, each level is a single colour, including the Lemmings themselves, which can make it difficult to see what is going on. Gallery Lemmings FrontCover.jpg|PC Front Cover Lemmings BackCover.jpg|PC Back Cover CGA Title.png|CGA DOS Title Screen TGA Title.png|TGA DOS Title Screen VGA DOS Title.png|VGA DOS Title Screen User Content Since the original lemmings game, many clones have been made. Some of the most widely used are Lemmix, Lemmini, and Tundra, and L++ though there are more listed on The Lemmings Archive. Some clones are capable of running custom levels. The most well known level editors for the original Lemmings game are LemEdit and Lemmix, both of which can also edit Oh No! More Lemmings. The level editor the original developers used is still around on a floppy disk owned by one of the developers, although they cannot get their computer to read the disk, so there is currently no level editor for the Amiga version of Lemmings. While custom levels can be played by the original game or Oh No! More Lemmings, the levels can sometimes be out of order, and in the case of the original game the file ODDTABLE.DAT makes things difficult. These players include Lemmix's Level Editor, the Lemmix Player (though it isn't obvious how to run lemmingseo2 custom levels through), Lemmini, Cheapo Copycat Lemmings, which has a level editor, although its level format is not compatible with any other player, so original levels or custom levels made with one of the level editors other than Cheapo's won't work, and Customized Lemmings, commonly called CustLemm. There is also a hack of the original lemmings.exe file that runs the levels in order. Trivia * In the cover art, the sign that the lemmings are carrying reads the game is not responsible for players' loss of sanity, hair nor sleep. 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